May, 1987

Michael looked nervously around the hotel ballroom, hoping Lisa wouldn't ask him to dance. He'd been so embarrassed about asking Lindsay to teach him that he'd convinced himself all he needed to learn was slow dancing, but what would he do if she asked him now? He looked back at Lisa, who was standing next to him at the edge of the room, and tried to come up with something to fill the silence, which was starting to become noticeably long. They'd really hit it off when they were working on a physics project together. Was there something he could say about that?

"How did the AP Physics test go?" he asked. He realized too late that that might have been a rude question.

"Oh, um, not that well," she said. Damn it, he thought.

"Oh, that's too bad. Well, I'm sure you did well on the other ones," he said. Did that sound condescending?

"Yeah, Spanish and Calc went pretty well," she said. "What about you, how did your physics test go?"

"Uh, okay," he said. It actually had gone pretty well, but he didn't want to say that after she'd said hers hadn't.

"Oh, well, you probably won't need physics credit anyway. You're going to major in business, right?"

"Uh, yeah. Yeah, you're probably right." He couldn't help but feel a flicker of annoyance. He'd said it had gone okay, not badly. He was pretty sure he was going to earn college credit for it.

He saw Lindsay and her date enter the room. Her simple black dress stood out among the sea of ruffles and metallics. She smiled when she saw him and gave him a little wave. He smiled and waved back.

"Who are you waving to?" Lisa asked, looking over her shoulder.

"Oh, just my sister. Hey, do you want to go talk to her and Roger?" he asked, thinking it would be easier to talk to Lisa in a group. For some reason she looked uncomfortable with the suggestion.

"Her?" she said.